The UK is a nation of -porkers- discuss

I think Tegan's right. There have always been fat people but poor people (most of us) used to have jobs requiring physical effort so that stopped them getting too fat. People walked more, think of the characters in the Brontes and Jane Austen, hiking miles to see a neighbour. And us war babies had a healthy but restricted diet. It's quite recently we've had such a huge choice of convenience foods and sedentary jobs.

And an awful lot more people drive cars these days. Not children, obviously, but they get ferried around whereas in our day we'd have walked or got the bus.

I have followed the links about white pudding and will once again repeat my request to HQ for a 'finger-down-throat' icon!!

And there are a lot more tempting goodies on display in the supermarkets these days, very cleverly marketed.

Doesn't sound as bad as black pudding! A Suffolk speciality, it seems, made with pigs' blood. Eurgh!

My brother loves back pudding and it produced a false positive in his 'poo test' because of the blood content in it!

Black pudding is found all over, jingl, including Yorkshire ("my mother's black pudding were so black, even t'white bits were black" - sorry, can't attribute it but DH keeps quoting it) and the excellent Stornoway version. We have had it in France (boudin noir) and in Norway where they put dried fruit in it - lovely!

Mealie puddings go very nicely cooked in mince, as I discovered when I moved to the North-East.

OMG!!!

Yes, I know it's found all over. It's just there are miles of free range pork farms all over the place in Suffolk, and anywhere you eat they seem to include it somewhere on the menu. Icluding the breakfasts at our hotel. (I stuck to my eggies)

DH ate the unrecognisable black blob that was, presumably, the black pudding.

Just come in on this post. Horrible term Porker. Why use it? Am I missing some in joke?

I agree with others - moderation is the key and exercise - even if gentle exercise. I could do with losing a few pounds but I think its the wine..but I'm not giving that up

It['s referring back to an earlier thread, themoll.

oops; where did that bracket come from . Now have spellcheck on my pooter but it doesn't pick up on other mistakes!

The title of the thread comes from (unless it's a coincidence) from this Mirror article dating back over two years. Maybe we had a discussion about it then. I can't remember.

Sorry - failed to check that post.

...the 'health expert' in that article looked a bit on the podgy side or was it just a bad photo?

MargaretX, we're just back from a week in Hamburg, and we thought, as you say, that the younger generation are on the whole slim, but the older people tend to have piled a bit of weight on, and be more like their counterparts here. When we walked round in the evening, the suburban streets were full of young people cycling, jogging, just walking and chatting. Exercise certainly has a high profile, even if the food tends to be on the heavy side. I managed to put a couple of pounds on, which I put down to the beer! But if we lived there now, we'd have to up our game on the exercise front.

So what is the acceptable word for describing someone who is fat – overweight, stout, heavily-built, well-built, plump, large, extra-large, outsize, corpulent? Apparently fat is as unacceptable as porker/porky. I note that it is still okay to describe someone as slim, thin or even skinny.

When you think about it, 'fat' is a noun. Not an adjective. So, what is the opposite of 'skinny'? Skin-stretched?

Oh - fat'll do!

If all the comments on this thread about the size of the population are well founded, perhaps the acceptable word is "average".

Call a spade a b****y shovel why don't you? Obese is the medical term. To conjugate the terminology:

I am chubby
You are overweight
She is obese

A spade is not a shovel.

Fat is not obese. Necessarily.

[wise nod of head]

I think fat is obese.

But a spade is certainly not a shovel. Silly saying, really...

Terribull my name does fit and in fact I have a lovely picture in my bedroom of a washing line full of knickers of all shapes and sizes. It says 'Sweetie pickers wear bigger knickers' and I asked my Mum to buy it for my birthday years ago! Sadly I still need those bigger knickers! Can't claim credit for my name though, as it originally belonged to one of Terry Wogan's TOGs and I pinched it!

I think it depends on who is speaking which words are OK. I've noticed doctors do their best not to use any word and just talk about someone's weight. I am fat and obese, but I would be cut to the quick if someone said so to my face. Heavy or overweight is more acceptable to me personally. After all, I am not an idiot and know my weight is a risk to my health, so anyone who speaks to me should realise something else is going on other than me simply overeating.

White pudding is one of the top 3 things I miss eating since I became vegetarian 15 years ago and as someone originally from Dundee, I can confirm it is mainly an east coast delight (especially with baked beans)! I did come across a chip shop on the west coast that did them, but that was in the last century (!) and I don't know if it still does. It's nothing like black pudding. More like haggis. But different.